


a thousand and one souls

by liketogetlost



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Blasphemy, Character Study, Dark Kate, Gen, Gore, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sexual Identity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-03 22:16:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5309084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liketogetlost/pseuds/liketogetlost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last time Kate was home she went back thinking there was a chance everything could be saved.</p><p>Now she stands in her living room and knows there’s nothing here worth saving. </p><p>(Santa Sangre Kate, in the RV, rage in her heart and no God to stop her.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. sunday morning coming down

Dawn is near, the rising sun close to absorbing the cool air of the night. 

 

People are screaming.

 

She wakes with a gasp, with a sharp pain between her eyes that feels like a crack in her skull. It’s gone just as quickly as it came and Kate stands.

 

Vague memories like pale ghosts float through her mind, and she remembers catching bullets in her gut. 

 

She squints, looking around the deserted well and wonders where the screams are coming from.

 

Kate walks towards the waving sunrise, stopping in her tracks as she finds the old RV. The professor bursts through the door with a groan.

 

It slams against the steel side and Kate watches as he stumbles towards a rock. Chuckles as he pulls down his fly and lets out a stream over the sand. 

 

He jerks his head up, cursing as he sees her. Tucking himself back in he runs a hand through his hair and shakes his head. “What the fuck?”

 

“Who is screaming?” 

 

“You’re dead.”

 

“No I’m not.”

 

“Jesus, must be the blood. It’s gotta have healing properties. Katie -”

 

Everything is tinted in red, and Tanner’s eyes flash, his fangs fall as Kate backs him against the RV. 

 

“Don’t ever fucking call me that.”

 

She reaches up and grips his head before he can react and twists it, cracking his neck. Kate can feel and hear the cartilage breaking, the flesh ripping as she jerks it from his body.

 

It rolls across the dirt into the yellow puddle he left behind.

 

The red is gone with a blink, seems to drip from her vision. Everything is painted orange now with the harsh dawn. Kate looks down at the crumpled, useless body at her feet. Notices the blood on her clothes and pulls her shirt over her head.

 

Kate undresses beneath the warm sky, strips down to bare skin.

 

Runs her palms over the softness of her stomach, unscarred like the day she was born.

 

She finds two girls inside the RV, they look half dead or high, eyes lidded.

 

Kate yells at them to leave and slams the door closed when they do. Hears their screams and realizes those are the only screams she can hear anymore.

 

Her bag is still in the back, clothes still smelling like the detergent her mother used to buy. Kate pulls on a pair of shorts and a tank top, tying her hair into a knot.

 

She stands there for a moment and looks around, remembering it’s only been near four months since she last stepped foot in the RV. 

 

Four months before, she was a God loving, straight-A little preacher’s daughter who saw the good in everyone. 

 

Kate sits in the driver’s seat, turning the key and hearing her dad in her head telling her not to gun it out of the driveway.

 

She sees cigarettes on the dash, the beheaded professor’s, and lights one. Inhaling the smoke deep and clouding the rage she feels in her chest.

 

The old heap shakes from side to side as she drives, reaching over and switching on the radio.

 

She heads for home.

 

-

 

The last time Kate was home she went back thinking there was a chance everything could be saved.

 

Now she stands in her living room and knows there’s nothing here worth saving. 

 

It’s like a museum, or a movie set. Everything in its place, just where it was left. There’s still scuff marks on the kitchen floor from where she tried to get away from Scott. Boot prints from the Ranger.

 

There’s a scratch on the coffee table made by Scott in the sixth grade. Kate goes upstairs and knows the fourth step will creak beneath her weight.

 

The pressure in her gut and the buzzing in her brain increases as she steps towards her bedroom. Goes for her parents room instead, tries not to notice how it still smells like them as she grabs some of her mother’s jewelry and stuffs it in her bag. 

 

There’s her Mama’s Bible, kept since she was a girl, still where she last left it in the bedside drawer. Jacob hadn’t let her touch it after Mama died.

 

Kate slips it in her bag as well.

 

There’s tears in her eyes she doesn’t feel as she rushes through her own room. Tugging clothes off hangers and grabbing handfuls of underwear from her dresser. Kate doesn’t look at the photos of her smiling with her friends tacked onto her cork board or the flowery bedspread she had told her Mama she was too old for but secretly still liked.

 

Kate grips the ceramic cross hung above her bed and yanks it from the nail in the wall.

 

Downstairs she opens her Daddy’s stash, grabbing the first bottle she sees and opening it.

 

As Kate pours it over the carpet the smell wafts into her nostrils, tugging at memories of her Daddy kissing her goodnight and smelling just the same.

 

Kate hums as she lets the liquor soak into the couch. Some song Seth used to like on the radio, something older. Kate remembers her Daddy playing it too when she was little.

 

_“And Lord, it took me back to something that I'd lost, somewhere, somehow along the way.”_

 

Makes her way back into the kitchen and sees the family photo on the counter where she left it. Hums louder as she tips the last of the bottle over the smiling faces.

 

Kate had been on her period that day. Her smile had been fake anyhow.

 

After that, she gets impatient. Takes the next bottle and just throws it against a wall. And another. Once more. Soon the entire house smells like a old, rotten bar.

 

Kate grabs her bag at the front door and slings it over her shoulder, picking up the cross from her bedroom. She pulls a match out of her pocket and swipes it across the back before she throws it into the kitchen. It breaks with a satisfying noise and she tosses the match after it.

 

Kate steps outside, singing the song out loud now, walking to the street and turning to watch the flames licking at the windows. 

 

_“Then I headed down the street,_

_And somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringing,_

_And it echoed through the canyon_

_Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday.”_

 

Inside the RV she keeps singing, throwing her bag on the passenger seat and starting the engine as the flames inside the house crack and burst.

 

Kate sings as she drives, drowning out approaching sirens and the screaming in her head.

 


	2. for my broken mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inside, her daddy is speaking to the congregation. Loud, booming voice channeling the words of the Lord as Kate smiles admiringly at him from the first pew.
> 
> Kate steps closer to the front. She sees herself, sitting there. It’s all in slow motion, but it’s like she can reach out and touch herself.

 

 

It had hurt, worse than anything she’d ever felt before.

 

Like her guts were bursting from the inside. Shot from behind as if the bullets had been chasing her down the long road from the Twister.

 

Laying there, literally bleeding out for the ones she’d loved, the pain was soon replaced by anger and in that moment she was convinced she would go to Hell for everything she’d done.

There had been no final peace when she’d closed her eyes for the last time. Kate didn’t feel the hungry lick of flames on her skin nor the heat of the celestial light. 

 

There had been the echo of a voice. Two voices that sounded like the screams of her father weaved with the whispers of her mother. 

 

The brain’s last dramatic buzzing, synapses firing once last time. Heaven doesn’t exist and Kate’s already been through Hell and back.

 

-

 

_“Pastor Fuller totally went batshit insane and killed his kids. Shot himself after. Nutjob.”_

 

_“Yeah, I seen Scott around. Looked like shit, real skinny and shit. I think he’s on drugs. I heard he sold his sister in Mexico.”_

 

_“Didn’t they move to California or something?”_

 

_“Crazy Mrs. Teller swears she saw Kate and Scott burying a body in their backyard a few weeks ago. Dumb bitch thinks she sees Hitler at Piggly Wiggly on Sundays, too.”_

 

_“It wasn’t the Pastor, it was Kate. She couldn’t handle the death of her mother and she murdered her father and her brother. I hope they catch that monster.”_

 

_“Oh yeah, Kate Fuller was fucking hot. I hope she’s not dead, what a waste of pussy.”_

 

-

 

Kate had liked more boys than just Kyle when she was in school.

 

Her junior year was a rush of extra-curricular activities, schoolwork, volunteering, tutoring at church and hormones.

 

Kate blamed it on being home schooled for so long, and not having boys around her all the time.

 

It seemed like almost every boy she looked at Kate fell in lust with. But she never gave herself away. Came close, a few times. Kyle wouldn’t allow it, although he did touch her under her shirt.

 

(Kate remembers kissing Jessica when they were fourteen. There were so many men in her life Kate thought it would be a relief to like girls. It seemed less terrifying, and she dreamed about living with a pretty girl when she was older. But girls didn’t make her heart race and her stomach drop like boys did.)

 

Her parents weren’t too strict about her dating, although Daddy always had a look in his eye like he wanted anyone who came calling to know he had a gun in the house.

 

Ultimately it was Kate who was strict on herself.

 

She prayed about it. Asked God to help her focus on the things that were important, family and serving him. But sometimes after she crossed herself and laid back in bed, the thoughts that made her belly flip would come back. 

 

When Kate would make herself come, gripping the pink sheets she laid on, the feeling was stronger than any shame that burned her cheeks.

 

There was a boy who always came around to talk to her when she was waiting for her friends alone. Sort of a dark one, and their circles never mixed. But when he smiled at her Kate felt that dangerous thump in her chest.

 

He kissed her at a party once. Put his hand up her skirt even as she pushed it away. After that she had nightmares about bony fingers poking at her flesh.

 

Now, Kate backs him up against the brick wall of building eight, slipping her tongue inside his mouth as he grips her waist. He grunts as his back slams a little too hard against the wall.

 

“Hey, Kate. Slow down.” He breathes warm and humid across her cheek, breath smelling like cigarettes but skin smelling sweet like pot.

 

There’s a heat between her legs, a heat she feels drew her to school to find this pathetic teenage boy she knew always wanted her. Those phantom fingers pulling at her from her nightmares.

 

“You don’t want me?” There’s her old voice, the soft one. The virgin, just a dress she wears now.

 

He chuckles darkly, like he knows more than her. “Fuck, yeah. Always did. Where the hell have you been, though? Everyone’s talking, I’ve heard some crazy ass shit.”

 

She slips her hand in his jacket, pulls out his pack of cigarettes and asks him if he has a light. She’s grabbed him through his pants but he looks more shocked to see her sucking at the end of a Marlboro. 

 

“I killed my Daddy.” Kate casually confesses through a cloud of smoke.

 

That laugh again, more nervous this time. “I mean, that’s one of the rumors, yeah.”

 

Kate shakes her head, walking towards him again and grinning at how he backs away. “No. I drove a wooden stake through his heart. Saved him from becoming a demon.”

 

The heat in her groin gets hotter at the fear welling up in his eyes. “Jesus Christ, you ain’t right.”

 

“Jesus would never listen to you.” Speaking through the virgin again.

 

She sees everything in red. 

 

A girl with dark hair and dark eyes, who calls to her from the blood, tells her how her innocence was taken from her. 

 

Kate flicks the burning stick to the ground before she grabs his hand, bending three of his fingers backwards. His scream covers up the sound of the bones cracking.

 

He yells at her, calls her a psycho bitch, tears spilling out of his eyes and making her sick.

 

Kate grabs him through his pants again, squeezing so hard his face turns red and he struggles to breath.

 

The wind whips her hair into her face as Kate yanks at him, hard. 

 

He can’t even scream, just wheezes a dry hiss like a snake.

 

She doesn’t look back at the disgusting crumpled mess crying on the ground. The red filters away and she lets the wind billow her dress around her thighs as she leaves him.

 

- 

 

Kate brakes the RV in front of her church, cutting the engine. The radio shuts off and it’s suddenly dead quiet. Bethel Baptist Christian looms like a lost and forgotten place. Although it’s small, painted white with one high steeple threatening to turn and pierce the ancient tree that stands next to it. 

 

There’s no cars parked in the front, it’s a quiet Tuesday afternoon. Pastor Phillip might be in the back room doing paperwork but otherwise the church is usually empty at this time of day.

 

She steps outside, the slight chill in the air making the unshaven hairs on her bare legs stand up as she makes her way to the church. 

 

The sky darkens, clouds rolling past, and Kate pulls open the door.

 

_Inside, her daddy is speaking to the congregation. Loud, booming voice channeling the words of the Lord as Kate smiles admiringly at him from the first pew._

 

Kate steps closer to the front. She sees herself, sitting there. It’s all in slow motion, but it’s like she can reach out and touch herself.

 

_Kate looks over at Scott, grinning with glee and squeezing his hand. He smiles but doesn’t squeeze back._

 

Kate looks up at the podium, empty with the mic sticking up suggestively. Still, she can see her father preaching the Good Word. 

 

_“There is no evil in this world strong enough to fight and win over our Lord. You can repel the evil that greets us every day, as long as you carry God in your heart like a weapon. Use the love that he wants you to use, to feel. Don’t ever let it go, and don’t ever give up.”_

 

Kate sits down on her spot in the pew, gripping the wooden bench beneath her. 

 

_Kate turns to her left and smiles at herself. “You can still find your way. God wants you to be at peace.”_

 

“There is no peace. There is no love.” She looks over at the pinned hair and white laced girl. “You’re just a sheep.”

 

_Kate frowns. Her brow furrows as a small tear struggles its way from her eye and falls down her cheek with relief. “Mama is so sad all the time.”_

 

She nods, gripping the bench so hard it begins to crack. “Daddy said she might have gone to Hell.”

 

_The church is empty and Kate looks over to see herself hugging her mother. “We just need to pray on it, Katie.”_

 

_Kate wipes at her face, so angry she almost childishly stamps her feet. “Sometimes God can’t fix everything!”_

 

_Her mother shakes her head, eyes dim and without the life that used to shine from them. “We have to believe, otherwise there’s nothing to live for.”_

 

The wood in her hand splinters and Kate looks down at her palms, trickles of -

 

_from her head -_

 

_from her guts -_

 

_they yell at her -_

 

_she’s bled more than this, suffered more than this -_

 

_“You can’t save everyone with God, Kate.” Scott never really believed._

 

_“Then what else do we do? Why do you always fight me?”_

 

She wipes her hands on her shorts, staining the denim with s _anta sangre_ , and walks over to thestage. Above everything is the crossed symbol for why she never gave up.

 

_“You’re a hypocrite. You all are. You don’t always believe, Kate.” Scott always looked at her like she was a liar._

 

_“I try! I try so hard, it’s so easy for you. Easy to just not care, to turn your back on the Lord. You think I’m brainwashed but there is nothing harder than holding onto faith.”_

 

Kate stands at the podium, looking out at the empty seats.

 

_Her daddy stands in front of her, bleeding from his heart and shaking his head._

 

_Mama cries, reaching out for her._

 

_Scott slits his own throat in front of her before he’d ever take her hand._

 

_Seth holds out his syringe to her, heavy circles beneath his eyes._

 

_Richie smiles at her from around a cigarette, a puff of smoke escaping his mouth. “Daddy Adam and Mama Eve fucked, though.”_

 

“There’s nothing left, nothing left, nothing, it’s all gone, it’s empty, I’m empty, I’m -“

 

_The pews are filled with them, scaled faces with yellowed eyes that flash. Fangs fall down from their mouths and they smile at her like a temptation. Kate blinks and they’re all replaced with the victims of the blood inside her. Writhing and screaming -_

 

Outside, the clouds finally break.

 

 _\- inside, blood rains from the ceiling and they raise their hands like it might heal them._  

 

Kate feels her heart beating hard and full of blood in her chest as she grips the microphone and screams fury from her lungs like a demon. 

 

The stereo system screeches in protest, electricity sparking from the wires.

 

The glass windows of the church crack and break into shards that burst all over the room, the ceiling splitting in a line down the middle.

 

Pastor Phillip stumbles in just as Kate falls to her knees.

 

“Kate? My God, what -“

 

She shakes her head, struggling to breath and holding her hand out to keep him away. “Don’t. Get away from me.”

 

He kneels down near her, still reaching out with a shaking hand. “Please, let me help you -“

 

Kate laughs, wiping a line of spit from her chin and looking up at him. “Let me help you. Let _me_ , let _me_ help. No one wants my help, Pastor. Can I help you, _please_?” She crawls on her hands and knees towards him, breasts swaying unsupported in her t-shirt. 

 

“I’m still a virgin, Pastor. Isn’t that all that matters?”

 

She’s left blood stains on the carpet from her hands and the Phillip looks at her with concerned eyes. “Kate, we need to get you to the hospital. You’re bleeding.”

 

She giggles and shrugs, sitting back on her heels. “It happens, usually once a month.”

 

_“You can fight this. I can help you.”_

 

Kate looks up and sees herself again, in white, talking to her like she’s so sure all she needs is a good praying session and a Bible study.

 

“God, shut the fuck up!” Kate yells, covering her ears. “There’s nothing to fight, can’t you see that now?”

 

Pastor Phillip touches her arm and Kate swings it outwards, hitting him across the face. He falls back and she leaps onto him, gripping his throat.

 

“I thought my daddy killed my mama. I ended up killing him instead. Do you know what I’ve done, Pastor? _Do you know who I am?_ ”

 

He shakes his head, face turning blue. Choked words scramble themselves in his mouth.

 

“I gave, I gave everything like they said God gave his only son. I literally gave them my fucking soul but never again.”

 

_“Kate, please -“ she begs herself, clean lace turning red at her stomach -_

 

She turns, letting the Pastor go, looking up at herself and smiling. “Why aren’t you God? If he were real, he’d be here right now instead of you.”

 

There’s a circle of blood around Phillip’s neck from her palm, but he breathes.

 

Kate stands and walks slowly towards the door, glass crunching beneath her feet.

 

Outside, it’s pouring. There are no drops of water, just sheets of it like the clouds cracked open. Kate smiles, opening her arms and letting it drench her.

 

She laughs, hearing her Daddy in her head.

 

_“And you will rise, like Christ himself.”_

 

Inside the RV she clicks on the wipers and headlights. Goosebumps dot her flesh and her nipples are hard beneath her shirt from the cold. Kate tosses her wet hair behind her shoulder.

 

She sees herself, standing in front of the door of the church. Covered in white and wet, lost and alone.

 

Kate turns the ignition. She doesn’t cry for that girl.


End file.
